The night before had been filled with a lot of drinking. It was how we’d started. It would ultimately be how…

We awoke entangled in arms. He was the embodiment of a rockabilly dream (or rather, nightmare): tall, muscular, black hair, black clothes, fauxhawk. He carried himself like a badass motherfucker. And he was. Every part of it. Right down to his initials.

This is the man who would ultimately throw down the dominos that would pave the way to adulthood. It happened so fast, it was like a blur. But that doesn’t come until later.

We fooled around a bit in the morning before rushing to get ready for our day. I was originally going to cover a Sci-fi convention downtown. We still needed to get food before and after and then onto the place where we’d first met.

He was a secret. A vice. A tempting tempting all over the map tomcat that catered to my senses in a way that I should have known how crazy he was before the words even escaped him. He wasn’t supposed to be there that weekend. We ignored the caution tape and proceeded anyway. People do the stupidest things when they think they feel a connection with someone.

At the time. we weren’t even official. It mattered not. It was a dive into the deep end, complete with the talks often lead into places they never should have. It is part of what scared the crap out of me.